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PSY2900: Child Abuse/Neglect: Cite It Right

Citation Styles

There are a number of citation styles available to use, and it's important that you use the correct style for your class. 

The most common styles at WPU are APA (American Psychological Association), MLA (Modern Language Association) and Chicago/Turabian, but always check your syllabus know which to use.

The library has many resources available (online and on campus) to help with citing.  Below are a few useful links:

Why Cite?

There are a number of reasons why you should provide a list of references at the end of each paper or project, as well as cite these references in the actual text.

  1. To give credit to the original author/creator,
  2. To allow your professor and other readers to find the original sources.

Citing your sources is good form, but it also helps the reader to distinguish between your own thoughts and those of others.  It is also important in avoiding plagiarism, which is the intentional OR unintentional use of another's work without citing.

What's RefWorks?

Even though it's listed under the Databases tab on the Library homepage, RefWorks isn't a database you use to find articles.

RefWorks is a citation manager that can help organize and keep track of the sources you are using for your research.

As you do your research within the library website, you'll be able to import citations from our online catalog and most of our databases.  And, as an added bonus, RefWorks can convert your citations into a properly formatted bibliography!

Just keep in mind that RefWorks saves only your citations. It does not automatically save the full-text of an article.  Therefore, it's always a good idea to keep electronic copies in your own files, when possible.

To learn more about RefWorks, come to one of our Workshops or check out the RefWorks support page to get you started.